American Airlines’ fleet has just reached a pretty cool milestone, though perhaps most interesting is how close all of the “big three” US carriers are to one another in this regard… sort of.
American’s mainline fleet now has 1,000 aircraft
American has just received its 1,000th mainline aircraft. Specifically, the 1,000th plane was one of American’s brand new Boeing 787-9s, in a premium configuration, featuring the carrier’s new business class. Since April, the airline has received eight premium 787-9s, of the total of 30 of these that it has on order.
American provided a cool fleet fact sheet for this occasion, breaking down how the carrier’s fleet is evolving. A few things stand out:
- American really had very little fleet growth in 2023 and 2024, as it ended 2023 with 965 planes, and ended 2024 with 977 planes
- American expects to end 2025 with 1,014 planes, and that growth is through delivery of new Airbus A321XLRs and Boeing 787-9s, as well as a substantial number of additional Boeing 737 MAX 8s (yay?)
- These numbers don’t include American’s massive regional jet fleet, which consists of well over 500 planes
- American still has over 400 planes on order between its mainline and regional jet fleet, though over time we’ll also see previous generation aircraft retired, so that won’t just be used for growth, but also for renewal
How does the fleet size compare to Delta & United?
The “big three” US carriers are all roughly comparable in terms of size, so how does American’s milestone compare to what you’ll find at Delta and United?
At the beginning of 2025, United became the world’s largest airline in terms of fleet size, as the airline took delivery of its 1,000th aircraft, overtaking American. So that means United beat American to this achievement by several months. United has been growing considerably in recent years, and there are no signs of that stopping, so I trust that United will continue to be larger than American.
What about Delta? Well, the airline is just trailing American in terms of mainline fleet size, and currently has 990 planes, so it should pass the (premium) 1,000-aircraft threshold very soon.
It is interesting to note the difference in regional fleets between the airlines, depending on how you want to factor that into the math. American Eagle is the largest regional carrier by a pretty healthy margin. Delta Connection has around 340 planes, United Express has around 460 planes, and American Eagle has around 550 planes.
Bottom line
American Airlines’ mainline fleet now consists of 1,000 aircraft, which is a cool milestone. United reached this milestone earlier in the year, marking the first time in a very long time that United had more planes than American. Meanwhile Delta should reach this milestone soon.
Of course let me emphasize that the number of aircraft in the mainline fleet is only one of many metrics to judge airline size. You could also judge size based on the total number of seats in the fleet, the number of passengers carried, the number of air seat miles offered, etc.
What do you make of American’s 1,000-plane milestone?
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